Worst Working Day Ever

So we go to the site that the World AIDS day is being celebrated to help set up. Tents and food are what we are helping with.

I see our cow again, this time the cooks cut apart its head with an axe. And then the boss comes around and rounds up about 10 of us. Since it is all in siSwati I just kind of go along, in the truck I ask what we are doing they tell me going to get some fire wood.

So we drive out to a forest, Swaziland 2nd biggest industry after growing sugar cane is timber and the region I live in you can’t drive more then a couple of mile without seeing a planted timber field.

So we show up with 10 guys one saw and 2 bush knifes ( the kind that were made famous in Rwanda). We find a guy with a chainsaw. And cut down one tree (a dead one) before the chain and motor both bust. I joke since the chain broke that it is just a saw.

Anyway, we start hacking away at the tree with the bush knives as they take the regular saw to go cut down more dead trees. At this point, I am bored and miserable cause this is really the last thing I want to be doing. So I take my turn with the knife and don’t really give it up for next couple of hours. I have done some manual labor in life (laid carpet in college during the summer) but not for a long time and I have office hands.

So finally after like 3 hours the chainsaw is going again, which makes the work faster but they cut down more trees. Since I am not interested in hauling tree, I keep hacking away. Finally, they call it quits and time to go back to the site. I have multiple blister on each hand. OUCH.

They gives us food, the Lepalechy (sp??) its porridge but like hard mashed potatoes that frankly I hate. I ate a lot of it at my old homestead, and haven’t eaten once since I was in control of my own cooking. I got 2 slices of carrots and what I think was the joint of chicken between the thigh and wing.

After the collecting wood, I was hot, dirty, tired, hungry, blistered, sore (both physical and temper) and thirsty and HUNGRY. So I eat my food and don’t like any of it.

Tell my boss that I got to get back to coach my team by 5, we leave at 4:45 for a long drive, I get to my practice at 5:30, catch 2 players leaving as I arrive, 1 who was making it to practice for the very first time.

I showed up in my dirty clothing and actually had a great practice I worked out the keeper doing one on one drills with the players. Anyway, after such a shitty day, it was nice to have a great practice.

When I got home Bread was a bottle of explosive energy from having been in the bathroom all day. All I wanted to do was clean up and go to sleep. But he wanted/needed to play for hours and so we played tuck a war with my sock, his new favorite hobby.